And the Winner is..........

[km]

Congratulations to Bob Stark from Las Vegas ("247exactabox") for winning the HTR Winter Challenge! Outstanding consistency Bob - excellent timing and pacing yourself throughout.

The results are unofficial while we allow 24 hours for players to lodge protests or dispute their scores. But it looks like "LeakyEyes" (Barbara Buckley) will finish 2nd and "2jedijbw1" (John Wallace) will get 3rd. Excellent handicapping, you just missed.

Charles_M (Charles Martin) and "MT Ken" (Ken Busch) receive bonus prizes for highest mutuel and top ITM% respectively.

There will be a bonus contest for those of you that "beat KM" (just about everyone) and I'll announce that on Tuesday and we'll play it starting Wednesday. It will be a variation of the 'showvivor' contests, but with a little twist. I'll pick a designated race at GP and you must survive by picking the Win - Place - Show or the Last Place finisher! If your horse finishes 4th or worse, but not last, you are out.

I will be in touch with all the prize winners very soon and there will be a complete wrap up and review of the contest in the newsletter due out next week.

Kudos to all for participating, we hope you had fun and learned a great deal about yourself and your strengths and weaknesses as horseplayers. Rick and I learn from each contest too and will strive to improve the next one - feedback appreciated.

Last but not least, thank you Rick Bush for running a super tournament. Enjoy your 'donation' from all the players as we appreciate a job well done.

[Gabby]

Thanks for all your effort :)

Flustered as I was trying to juggle two entries, I can only marvel at your stamina.

[LurkingBettor]

Nice going, Bob, and all the top finishers as well! Some tremendous handicapping during this tournament!

Thanks to Ken and Rick for putting it on. Much fun as always.

[tommyc]

Congrats to Bob, Barbara, John and all you other high place finishers, great job !

I had already posted my accolades to you guys on the "Winter Handicapping Forum" so we'll leave it at that.

Of course, while talking about winners, let us not forget that I overtook Mike Dee for the bottom spot of all players that used 60 plays ! I DO think that qualifies for a PRIZE !

Rick Bush, you're probably getting tired of all the praise and good wishes to you for your work. Sincere "thanks" from all of us.

tommyc

[hurrikane]

A special thanks to Rick. I didn't get to enjoy much of the contest thanks to work but was really impressed with the winners. Very nice work.

Look forward to seeing the winner in Vegas at the Orleans.

[MikeDee]

Tommy - I had a lock on last place, you guys really laid down to beat me out of it:(

Thanks to Rick and Ken for all the hard work and runnig the tourny for us.

Congrats to all the winners and a hats off to everyone who finished with a Positive ROI. Dragging those place and show bets around over a long contest and managing a positve result is an accomplshment in itself.

For me and the rest of the bottom feeders, it's back to the salt mines!!

[MtKen]

Congrats Bob & Leaky & Jedi---Great finishing kicks...nice last bullet 247Xbox.

[Glen]

Ditto and thanks Ken and Rick for putting it on...

[Dr. Larry]

Thank's Rick,
You worked the hardest.
You were efficient and ahead of the
curve throughout. Thank you...Larry

[dougc]

Thanks, Ken and Rick. A professional job as always in the highest traditions of HTR. I can't wait for the next one.

[km]

Appreciate the nice comments everyone. We'll do it again in August.

Poor MikeDee, he is really in a funk, couldn't even hold on to the last prize prize!

"TequilaTea" (TommyC - 2nd entry) is the official Last Place Finisher in the contest because he played out all his picks and had the lowest score. Only "TequilaTea" and "Korky" were unable to pick a single winner in 18 days. To Tommy's credit he made a nice comeback on the final day with his other entry. However, Ripken00 and Dawgfan (John Buls) literally rose from the dead on the last day to finish in the top 15, nice comebacks!

[MtKen]

Since Tommy C has won 1 HTR contest & finished last in this one it gives all of us in the middle some hope! Maybe even the Cubs, Indians, & RedSox........................

[Donnie]

MtKen...don't get too carried away with the Cubs, ok? :D

[MtKen]

Donnie:

Maybe if TC would've finished last in the 1st contest & won this one then I could make a better case for the Cubbies :)